ARTICLES ABOUT ABORTION CLINICS BY DATE - PAGE 2

By Heide Brandes OKLAHOMA CITY, Feb 27 (Reuters) - The Oklahoma House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill on Thursday to apply new restrictions on abortions that lawmakers said are aimed at protecting women's health but opponents say are designed to shut down clinics. The legislation includes a provision similar to one put in place in neighboring Texas that requires physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at an appropriately equipped hospital within 30 miles (48 kms)

JACKSON, Mississippi (Reuters) - Mississippi lawmakers took steps to become the latest U.S. state to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy by passing a measure on Thursday that seeks to further restrict access to the procedure. Legislation approved by the state's House of Representatives in a 89-22 vote asserts that a fetus can feel pain by 20 weeks of gestation, halfway through a full-term pregnancy, and that the state has a duty to protect the unborn child. Abortions would be legal after 20 weeks only if a woman's life was in danger, according to the measure.

Wendy Davis, a Democratic state senator running to replace Rick Perry as governor of Texas, owes her political stardom to two things: a pair of pink sneakers and her unstinting support for a woman's right to terminate a late-term pregnancy in a substandard clinic. Yay Feminism! Last year, Davis led an 11-hour filibuster -- that's where the sneakers came in handy -- to block legislation that would ban abortion after 20 weeks and require abortion clinics to meet the same standards that hospital-style surgical centers do. This was all going on against the backdrop of the sensational Kermit Gosnell case in Pennsylvania.

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Groups opposed to new restrictions on abortion in Texas filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court on Monday to halt part of a law that prompted a dozen clinics in the state to stop performing the procedure. The move is the latest step in a legal battle between the Republican-dominated state government of Texas and supporters of the right to abortion over the law that imposes some of the toughest restrictions in the United States. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia gave attorneys for the state of Texas until November 12 to respond to the emergency request to halt a key provision in the law, according to court documents.

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio sued the state over including abortion-related provisions in its budget, in what abortion rights activists charged was an effort to quietly restrict women's access to clinics. The ACLU said Ohio unconstitutionally approved three restrictions along with the state budget in June, including one that bars public hospitals from having patient transfer agreements with clinics, which were unrelated to budget issues. Ohio, which has a Republican-controlled legislature and Republican governor, has become known among abortion rights supporters as a testing ground for restrictions, as conservatives have pushed a number of new proposed abortion provisions on the state level over the past three years.

Tom Brejcha is nothing if not an optimist - a requisite, perhaps, for his line of work. On a recent morning in Cook County Circuit Court, a judge dismissed three counts from a lawsuit that claims Illinois' ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Brejcha and his public-interest law group, the Thomas More Society, were gunning for full dismissal of the lawsuit. The plaintiffs' attorneys say the two remaining counts are the main ones anyway, and the case will now proceed. "Hey, three out of five isn't bad," Brejcha said confidently as he left the courtroom.

By Gary Robertson RICHMOND, Va., Oct 4 (Reuters) - Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe has a narrow lead over Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli a month away from Virginia's election for governor, according to a poll released on Friday. McAuliffe, a former head of the Democratic National Committee, leads Cuccinelli, a Tea Party favorite, by 42 percent to 35 percent, the poll from the University of Mary Washington's Center for Leadership and Media Studies showed.

"The clinic reeked of animal urine, courtesy of the cats that were allowed to roam (and defecate) freely. Furniture and blankets were stained with blood. Instruments were not properly sterilized. Disposable medical supplies were not disposed of; they were reused, over and over again. Medical equipment - such as the defibrillator, the EKG, the pulse oximeter, the blood pressure cuff - was generally broken; even when it worked, it wasn't used. The emergency exit was padlocked shut. And scattered throughout, in cabinets, in the basement, in a freezer, in jars and bags and plastic jugs, were fetal remains.